I'm not suggesting to put one's one needs first, but rather those of other people—or all people. To the extent a principle, abstract idea, or cause is useful, it must be examined in light of its effects, both direct and indirect, on people.

Sometimes, policies that follow from abstract ideas do harm to some people, in the interests of helping others (hopefully more), or do harm in the short term, in the interests of helping in the long term. Sometimes, these tradeoffs are good to make; other times, they are not.

There is no hard and fast Golden Rule that can serve as your bedrock if you treat it as something to be applied in all situations without critical analysis. The closest I can come is "care about people", but even that requires careful application, because there are situations when you must do things that hurt some people—even people you do care about—in order to do what is best for all.